Pershing Square Loses 6.7% In First Two Weeks Of August, Down 11% For The Year

Since our subscription to the HSBC HF tracker appears to have expired, we now rely on Bloomberg Brief's for hedge fund performance update. And what an ugly update it is, especially for members of the old groupthink guard, led by Pershing Square's Bill Ackman. To wit: "William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP dropped by 6.7 percent in the first half of August to drop year-to-date returns to -10.57 percent, according to HSBC Private Bank data." And while we know of the scorched earth currently happening on the 50th floor of 1251 Avenue of the Americas, another big time hedge fund, Owl Creek, is getting pummeled behind the scenes: "Owl Creek Asset Management LP’s $4.8 billion offshore fund was down 9.3 percent in the first 12 days of August, according to HSBC Private Bank data. The fund, managed by Jeffrey Altman, is down 9.16 percent year-to-date through Aug. 12."

Some more:

Quant Z Capital Management Ltd. was up 80 basis points in the first 15 days of August and had returned 7.3 percent year-to-date through Aug. 15, according to an email sent to investors, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg. The New York-basedfund is managed by Milind Sharma.

Arrowhawk Capital Partners’ Commodity Strategies fund was up around 3 percent in the first half of August to bring year-to-date returns to around 11.5 percent, according to an individual with knowledge of the matter who declined to be named because the information is private. The $180 million fund is managed by Jennifer Fan.

A $2 billion hedge on the S&P 500 Index generated more than $100 million in profit for Carl Icahn, Bloomberg News reported, citing two people with knowledge of the trade.

A summary of return by strategy. Something tells us that with the market on the verge of a bear market, there is at least one typo in the observation that short-biased equities are the only strategy down for the year.

You must belong to the group that says - the easy money has been made. Now it is a stock picker's market - lol. I made 40+% last year and the year before was 30% and the year before and the year before...

Icahn has alot of people working for him. Without them, he would be unwinding his funds. He is too old for the business, IMO, and should pull a Soros.

Ackman shorted MBI in 2007-2008, but seems to not be operating much of a short portfolio these days. Too bad.

The guy I miss is Michael Burry: he wound down his Scion funds in 2008 and is now just a private investor. He communicates very little about his positions nowadays, but his speeches about the macro direction help you see his investment thesis is roughly similar to ZH.

Icahn was right about Motorola . . . not sure if he stuck around long enough to make money on that call, but he's been trumpeting the value in that company for years. Not that I'm a fan of his, but credit where credit is due.

What that means is that the funds will need to get off their asses and start putting money into real deals with good upside.

"Risk On" will be taken to a whole new level. The Fed backstopping the markets, ZIRP until 2013 and the money managers need to get very creative.

Could be that a spending binge is coming, like we haven't seen since the Nineties and dot.com era.

No returns, no fees and the funds go bankrupt. Only way out for them is to be aggressive and moving forward on everything that looks promising.

They're going ALL IN. All on BLACK so to speak.

Whatever moves, has a heartbeat and can't climb the trees fast enough will get nailed and has to take the money.

Please, please take the money! If it doesn't work out, we will worry about it later.. say in 2013?

This is the nature of American Capitalism. Forget higher interest rates. Forget more QE. Forget higher taxes. Now comes the FLUSH of hoarded cash into the draught stricken financial system from funds which are at a DEAD END street.